MEMEX - Manufacturing Execution System

How the Industrial Internet of Things is Revolutionizing Manufacturing

We live in a data-driven society where we’re constantly connected to each other. Now the Internet of Things (IoT) is connecting “things” together. But one industry lags when it comes to connecting “things”. Most industrial plant managers, CEOs and CFOs don’t know what’s happening on their shop floors since their manufacturing machines are “islands of automation” that aren’t connected to each other, or able to report on their productivity in real-time. One public Canadian company has solved this problem. Leading manufacturers are purchasing this company’s “industrial” IoT, or IIoT, solution and seeing significant returns with an average Internal Rate of Return of 300%, which means payback in 4 months or less. Manufacturers aren’t the only ones recognizing this company; Cisco Systems and Mazak Corporation have formed alliances with it to conquer the IIoT opportunity.

Why You Need to Read this Report

  1. Discover the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and find out how big the long-term market opportunity could be – hint: not “billions” but “trillions”;
  2. Learn how manufacturing evolved from hand tools to big data on machine shop equipment;
  3. Unearth established technologies that will benefit from the next industrial revolution;
  4. We reveal ways for investors to get exposure to IIoT, including a public Canadian company that not only is selling products but has also recently formed an alliance with a tech giant and one of the world’s biggest machine tool manufacturers, and;
  5. We look at some real world case studies and quantify the operational and financial benefits from adopting IIoT.

To read the full report, please click here.

MEMEX - IIoT

Complete Digital Factory Integration and the IIoT

In an industry-shaping collaboration, Mazak Corporation, together with information technology (IT) leader Cisco and machine-to-machine solutions provider MEMEX, Inc., have developed what is described as an industry first, called SmartBox.

Tomorrow’s factories will use Multi-Tasking machines, advanced manufacturing cells, and robotic automation systems together with complete digital integration to achieve free-flow data sharing.  In such an environment, connectivity of machines and devices allows for enhanced process control, operation monitoring, and analytical capabilities — all within a plantwide or multi-plant cybersecure network connected to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

Joint efforts of machine tool builder Mazak Corporation, manufacturing communications platform provider MEMEX, Inc., and IT leader Cisco have achieved a significant leap forward with the  successful digital integration of the Mazak factory. Mazak now accesses and uses real-time manufacturing data to improve overall productivity and agility along with responsiveness to customer and market changes. This project also resulted in the development of a launch platform, called SmartBox, for an easy and secure entrance into the IIoT.

You can find the white paper available for downloading here: SmartBox White Paper

How to Drive Continuous Improvement Without Negatively Impacting Production Employees Productivity

Do you ever have new customer’s tour your manufacturing operations?  Sure you do.  You are demonstrating to them your capabilities, quality, attention to detail and your ability to deliver product to them on time.  In the world we live in today, manufacturing is being driven to support their internal and external customers with accurate and timely information that truly represents REALITY.

Accurate & timely information is key to delivering on continuous improvement programs, but burdening production operators with capturing data rather than producing quality on-time parts, is not the answer.  Memex Automation’s MERLIN Solution can deliver these capabilities in a commercial off-the-shelf solution, deployed using best practices to deliver the information to your customers that will have them become repeat buyers.

Continue reading to learn how utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) in manufacturing will solve this data collection problem.

How to Drive Continuous Improvement Without Negatively Impacting Production Employees Productivity

Does your organization have concrete strategies for operational efficiencies, with connections to your manufacturing machines, utilizing Internet of Things (IoT) concepts?  The disruptive pressures from management and competition along with the availability of state of the art technology can deliver operational improvement from 10% – 50% TODAY.

MERLIN, from Memex Automation, delivers the comprehensive data connections to all of your equipment and delivers actionable information for your operational stakeholders (e.g. management, production, engineering and operators).

A recent survey of North American manufacturers indicates that operational efficiency is most frequently cited for short term projects.  Cost cutting (44%), employee productivity improvements (46%) and asset optimization (46%) are seen as most likely to benefit.

Connected devices and the data they generate are delivering new ways for manufacturers to predict maintenance requirements, improve production yields on their shop floors, and increase uptimes in their factories.  All of these factors combined are leading to tremendous growth opportunities for manufacturers.  The IoT is lowering the costs of goods sold allowing manufacturers to take those savings and reinvest them into their business, their research and development, and most importantly, their people.  IoT growth will lead to job growth in the manufacturing sector, so see how you can take advantage of this today – http://www.memexoee.com/company/the-last-metre/

So what is the advantage of machine versus operator generated data/information for a manufacturer?

Let’s start with a real world example.  A manufacturer of medical devices had their machine operators keep track of when, how long and why a machine was down.  The Lean Team knew that the operator was not able to capture the accurate down-time (many times 500% more than was manually recorded) and the process of manually documenting down-time reasons was distracting the operator from always producing quality parts.  Implementing a solution that focuses most of the burden of accurate information on automated machine capture allows the operator to focus on making quality parts and only input data that cannot be automatically generated.  To learn more about machine monitoring, please click here – http://www.memexoee.com/solution/machine-monitoring/

But what about turning data into information that can be utilized to make decisions?

One of our customers initially thought that capturing automated machine data would create massive amounts of data that would sit in a computer and no one would use it.  That is where MERLIN comes in to play.  MERLIN takes all of that accurate and timely data and delivers it to various stakeholders in an easy-to-use form that can then be used to make decisions to improve the process.  This transparency of information creates a team environment for improvement that can energize the operation.  To learn more, please click here – http://www.memexoee.com/solution/oee-overall-equipment-effectiveness/

MEMEX - Machine Monitoring

MTConnect: What’s In It For You?

Getting Started with MTConnect: Monitoring Your Shop Floor – What’s In It For You?

The MTConnect Institute is pleased to announce the availability of a new document entitled “Getting Started With MTConnect – Shop Floor Monitoring, What’s In It For You?” This guide was created by the MTConnect Connectivity Working Group that is made up of members of the Technical Advisory Group of the Institute. The purpose of this guide is to answer the question, “What are the tangible benefits associated with monitoring shop floor assets utilizing MTConnect?”

Who will benefit by reading this white paper? Those in production will benefit from having visibility of operations and increased efficiency. CEO’s benefit from increased profitability of their manufacturing operations. Engineers benefit from having access to a significant amount of data about their machining processes. Operators benefit from being able to communicate better with the machine and all stakeholders affected by the machines.

For more information on MTConnect, please click here.